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We began the Build 100 project by collecting data on more than 100,000 U.S. midmarket companies (those with 85 to 999 employees). We then looked at how many increased head count in every year from 2007 to 2012. Remarkably, fewer than 1.5 percent of the companies met that standard. Of those that did, we selected a representative sample that agreed to work with us on a long-term research project to understand the factors responsible for sustained growth. We focused on head count rather than revenue because we found that increased hiring is more predictive of future sustained growth, and that’s what this project is all about. For more details about the Build 100, see “Grow. Hire. Repeat.”